Officers find ‘no real firearms’ in home of Wisconsin teen arrested on suspicions of planning a school shooting
The Kenosha Police released images of the suspect in the school. Portions of the image were blurred by police.
(CNN) — Officers in Kenosha, Wisconsin, found “no real firearms” in the home of a boy accused of attempting to enter a secure area of an elementary school, police said Friday.
The 13-year-old, whose name has not been made public, was arrested Thursday and charged with one count of making “terroristic threats,” the police department said in a statement.
He is expected to make an appearance in court later Friday.
Staff members at Roosevelt Elementary School were hailed as heroes after they approached the teen, who appeared “suspicious” and was allegedly trying to enter the school while carrying two bags.
The boy entered a secure area of the school after trying to get in through side entrances, Kenosha Unified School District Superintendent Jeff Weiss said Thursday. The teen then appeared “nervous” and ran away.
“They did not know in the exact moment what was happening, but their actions were heroic and prevented the unfathomable,” Weiss said, calling the incident a “potential school shooting.”
Detectives who executed the search warrant on the teen’s home found “several air soft replica handguns and a replica rifle,” but police said, “no real firearms were located during the search.”
Police said detectives have interviewed the suspect who first “claimed to have gone to the school to sell candy” but “later told a social worker that he went to the school with the intent to scare students.”
The suspect’s mother has been “cooperative” throughout the investigation, the department said, and she informed police that the child “does not have access to firearms.”
“While yesterday’s incident did not result in unimaginable tragedy, it still had a powerful effect on many of us,” the department said, adding although a crisis was averted, the staff response is an example of the adage, see something, say something.
“As we try to process everything, we are encouraging everyone to have conversations with their children and talk about the importance of reporting suspicious activity.”
Police responded to the scene at Roosevelt Elementary School and posted photos of the teen on social media, which led to tips from the community, Kenosha Police Chief Patrick Patton said at a news conference Thursday. Meanwhile, students throughout the district were held in class during investigators’ search for the suspect.
Through those tips, authorities were able to locate the suspect and convinced him to surrender before he was ultimately arrested. He was described as being a student within the district.
Though Patton did not say what was in the bags the boy was carrying, he said authorities have at least one video of him holding what they believe is a firearm and appears to show him “practicing rudimentary techniques” with the weapon. The teen conducted multiple internet searches about school shootings, and he also shared videos and made several comments to students about school shootings for months before Thursday’s incident, Patton said.
“We know that there was internet searches, and all the red flags that we would look for and expect someone to report were there,” the chief added. “We narrowly missed a tragedy today, and we’re just going to re-encourage everybody when they see something, say something, help us have those talks with your children. These videos … should have been reported to us earlier.”
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